I have an Alienware m5700 notebook. I know it will run Vista Aero, but I don't think gaming will be faster then XP. What do you think?

Pentium M 760 2.00 Ghz
1 Gig Dual Channel DDR2
Go 256mb 6800
Windows XP Home

Stick with XP for at LEAST another 6 months, then ask again

Where's your sense of adventure?

To answer your question, it will run well, even with Aero. You might consider a RAM upgrade depending on what apps you want to run or how much multitasking you want to do, but that's it.

"Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion!
Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution!
The ripple effect is too good not to mention.
If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"

These answers are great. The kind of RAM I use is expensive, but I think ReadyBoost should work. That should save me a couple hundered dollars.

LOL...

ReadyBoost does not help RAM performance. It helps disk performance.

"Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion!
Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution!
The ripple effect is too good not to mention.
If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

I ran Vista RC1/RC2 for a few weeks & see no compelling reason to upgrade at this time. I'll let the masses find all the bugs & the hackers have at it, then when the dust has settled, I'll re-evaluate.

Here's clip from an article that was posted in the Vista forum:

"Here's what we know about Vista: It's too big, still hampered by internal code dependencies and was concocted by way too many cooks. Because of this, the product kept slipping and shedding features, missed the holiday buying season and was released to market before many Microsoft partners (and Microsoft product teams) had delivered Vista-compatible drivers and applications"

http://redmondmag.com/columns/artic...

I don't see why Microsoft made so many changes, especially changes to things people are so familiar with.

First off, I agree with you in principle it's wise to wait a while, or dual boot with Vista and XP. However...

"I ran Vista RC1/RC2 for a few weeks"

No offense, but that's not a fair evaluation of it. Vista in RTM release runs soooooooooo much better. In fact, if you disable the advanced GUI settings, it performs for all intents and purposes as well as XP.

"...& see no compelling reason to upgrade at this time."

Vista, just like Windows 2000 compared to Windows 98, didn't have a killer feature that made home users on that alone run out and buy it. Over time, however, the little things that are invisible to the user made W2K a far more reliable operating system.

Vista is the same. The security features alone such as a real, useful software firewall built in, and the shielding of the OS from Internet Explorer at the code level will make a HUGE difference in reliability for the OS. Add to that in the 64-bit version Kernel Patch Protection, and the overall security of the OS has made a quantum leap over XP. But the user won't realize that until they notice their system has been more reliable than with XP.

Vista will finally be able to be backed up and fully restored bare metal using built in technologies. That's a very nice feature.

I disagree with that evaluation with Vista.

The facts are Vista ships with more drivers and is compatible with more hardware than any previous version of Windows. Do you remember how apps and games ran way better in Windows 98 when Windows 2000 first came out? :-) To say this is somehow worse now than Windows 2000 is selective memory hard at work.

And keep things in their proper context - Vista is easily the most significant change in Microsoft operating systems since Windows 2000, and arguably with the 64-bit version, it's the biggest leap in an OS since Win 3.1 to Windows 95.

We have a very fuzzy memory of what it was like to jump from Windows 9X to Windows 2000. Perhaps it's been too long for us to remember. We saw most of the same concerns, but Vista is proving to be not as much of a pain as it was then.

So many people wants to dog Vista anyway that they can. I can understand some of the criticisms, such as the HD DRM technology built into it, but even people who have been very critical of Windows in the past agree this is a very good OS, and a worthy successor.

Now, while I think it's prudent to wait some time to get the bugs ironed out and the first wave of security issues to be corrected, Vista will prove to be a significantly better OS.

I do recommend dual booting for at least a period of time though.

"I don't see why Microsoft made so many changes, especially changes to things people are so familiar with."

Because they think it's a vast improvement. I know Microsoft has often changed things that irritate users used to the old way, such as the XP new start button style, but let's also give credit to Microsoft when they without question succeed.

Absolutely positively, without a doubt, Office 2007's interface for example is FAR superior, FAR more intuitive, and FAR more efficient to use than Office 2003's interface. Despite the fact I am a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and support Microsoft based solutions, I dogged Word 2003 without mercy. I HATE THAT APP! As strongly as I hate Word 2003, that's how much I love Word 2007, which even reading over what I just typed sounds strange even to me, but Word 2007 rocks!

Give Vista's differences a chance. I don't even know if I like them better at this point myself, but I'll give them a fair shot.

"Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion!
Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution!
The ripple effect is too good not to mention.
If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"

I know Vista will be good, but it's the matter of how long it will take for it to be better then XP. Now that I think of it, XP had complaints about security when it came out. Microsoft eventually ironed out most of those major problems. Vista does have some high system requirements. Aero needs atleast 128mb of GRAM, but Mac OS X can get almost the same look for only 64mb.

What about Aero when you're mobile? When I'm running off of battery my 6800 becomes almost a 6100 and the processor scales back 1.2 Ghz. I don't think Aero and mobility mix.

"Vista does have some high system requirements. Aero needs atleast 128mb of GRAM, but Mac OS X can get almost the same look for only 64mb."

A. Aero is not a necessity. Turn Aero off, and you have an OS that can run on surprisingly low end systems by today's standards.
B. Windows is Windows; Mac is Mac. If you want to compare the two, look at how the $2500 mac workstation comes with, I crap you not, an Nvidia 7300GT. You could get a completely decked out PC running Windows for half that price and have SLI if you wanted.

"What about Aero when you're mobile? When I'm running off of battery my 6800 becomes almost a 6100 and the processor scales back 1.2 Ghz. I don't think Aero and mobility mix."

A Radeon 9500 is the min requirement for Aero. My bet is your 6800 will run fine on the road with Aero. Your CPU scaling back is irrelevant. The design of Aero is to leverage your GPU, not your CPU.

But like I said, Aero is not a necessity, and quite frankly, it boggles my mind that this is the feature of Vista people talk about most. It's not going to change how you use your computer. It doesn't let you do something easier. It's eye candy.

"Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion!
Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution!
The ripple effect is too good not to mention.
If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"

Mac is an odd company. I've never heard of 3 or 4 7300s put together. They're good computers, but are geared more towards the average person. Personly, I think windows has more options. Have you ever thought they included Aero and some of the other high-end features so people would go out and buy new components or a new computer? I doubt they would do this, but it seems like that might happen.